Splurge

I've been eyeing the white stick for way, way too long now.
It's an investment and I'm a bit worried about the stick being too pointy and not Hubby-friendly. He has an ability to instantly forget he almost poked his eyes out coming in for a hug.
But, uh, you can only keep eyeing something for so long with the same interest before you eventually decide to get it.

Black White Hairstick 17.8cm

Teal Blue Wooden Hair Stick 17.8cm

Can't wait!

Hair inspiration

This was a picture I found on Dreamweaverbraiding, which now seems to not exist anymore?

The hairstyle was supposed to be a bunned up braid, where after securing it, the leftover length is left loose. This picture was the second-last with the finished style having the entire tail loose.

I started with a five-stranded braid, just for fun.

My thought was that this would help to "flatten" the bun-part but that didn't seem to help. Pout.

I love how wide the five-stranded braids are on my hair, so I had to show it off!

4 cm at below shoulders.

The finished style.
Like all asymmetrical styles, it looks better from one side than from the other.

I'm amazed at how I can both have a decently sized bun and a hipbone length ponytail going on at the same time!

Would I do this style again?

No. It felt unbalanced and loose. I also almost got my hair caught in things, like closing the fridge.

Hubby really liked it though!

Testerkorea haul II

Another testerkorea.com haul!

I really like that webshop!

Okay, no more TK hauls for a while now. Seriously. Ahem.

Innisfree: The Minimum

This line is what it the name says: A line for sensitive skin, with the minimum ingredients to create the product. Good in theory, but it was a total bust for me. It confirms how difficult it is to create good products for sensitive skin. Ecological doesn't make a product skin friendly, the minimum amount of ingredients doesn't make it skin friendly and natural ingredients doesn't make a product skin friendly. It also needs to have the right texture: Too light and your skin gets dry and cranky, too heavy and it irritates. It also needs to have the right acidic pH that works with the natural acid mantle of the skin.

• The cleansing lotion was a weird thick texture and seemed to leave a residue behind.
• The cleansing foam seemed to do nothing at all.
• The toner also seemed to do nothing. My skin usually feels dry after cleaning, until I add toner. But this toner didn't seem to do anything at all.
• The ampoule was the only thing I was remotely pleased with. I didn't hate it, but it also didn't have any real effect. Usually ampoule adds the "glow" but no moisture to my skin, but this one only sort of felt like a toner or something. It would probably be good for layering products though.
• The fresh cream was okay. 
• The moist cream was heavily moisturizing and ended up irritating me. You would have to have seriously dry skin to like this one! And even then, most people with dry skin prefer to layer products instead of putting one heavily moisturizer product one.

Yea, this line was a total bust for me.

Bentons snail bee line is awesome. I wanted to try the lotion and ended up getting a backup of the toner and essence as well. Whoops.

Assorted sheet masks and hand masks!
These really appeal to my lazy nature. Just unwrap, put on, ignore for a while, peel off. Wonderful.
And so cheap too! 
500 KRW each:

• 3,7 SEK
• 3 DKK
• 0,4 Euro
• 0,4 USD
• 0,3 GBP

Who can say no to that?

Banila Co's Claypatra has become my favourite cleanser. It's just so good!
I got the mineral salt clay pack too and that one is amazing as well. 
Highly recommended both of them! (Funny, because all other Banila Co-products have failed to impress me)

Left to right:

• Tonymoly Dust And The City Clear Shield Mist SPF8: A mister with SPF? Yes, thank you! This one went straight into my shoulder bag. I'm not so impressed with it though. It leaves a kind of funny feel/texture behind. But hey, being able to spray on a SPF just like that? With no patting or massaging required? Yea, I can live with that. The spray comes out perfectly fine and diffused too.
• Mizon Snail Repair Hydro Mist: A mister with snail slime filtrate? Yes, thank you! I'm very impressed with this one. It's light, yet moisturizing. Good stuff. The spray comes out perfectly fine and diffused too.
• Cosilon Jeju Snail Hand Cream: A hand cream with snail slime filtrate? Yes, thank you! This one went straight into my shoulder bag. I'm very impressed with this one. It's light, yet moisturizing. Good stuff.
• Innisfree The Green Tea Seed Serum: A nice and runny serum that has become my first moisturizing step after toner.

Assorted skin stuff.
Spot treatment patches, some peeling gel samples, whitening essence samples and in front: Nature Republic Hand & Nature Sanitizer Gel in lavender and green tea. These actually smell good! And are so small and convenient I have no excuse to not have them with me. And they're dirt cheap!

Hair stuff!

• WELCOS Confume Argan Treatment Hair Pack: 1 liter of conditioner. Good ingredient list. Cheap. Good!
• DAENGGIMEORI Honey Intensive Hair Mask: Another liter of conditioner. This had some sort of funny minty effect too it. Also very good! You seriously pay for the shipping, not the product with these.
• INNISFREE Green tea mint fresh scalp scaler: This one just sucked. All other scalp scalers I've tried have been awesome and left my scalp feeling "airy" and fresh without drying it out. This one left some sort of bizarre oily residue behind that I had to shampoo out. WTF and ew!
• Lador Perfect hair filler: These are awesome. You're supposed to mix them with water for a creamy, thin conditioner, but I mix them into regular conditioner. Works like a charm for thickening up cassia treatments too!

Innisfree eyeshadow pencils that had more glimmer than the webshop showed (Dislike) and also have a tendency to slide all over the place even on primer-bases (More dislike!) Two lipbalms.

O'Sulloc water + : Calorie free little packs to dissolve in water. Has antioxidants and pantothenic acid. I figured this would help me remember to drink enough water during the day!

Basically this is a bag that you insert in your bag to keep all your stuff from sliding around in one big, unorganized pile. It's quite awesome.

Links

I’ve been referred to on a website. This is nothing new by now, but the article my post is referred to in is surprisingly good. Most of the times when people write articles about “How to grow long hair” it’s full of BS pseudo-science and a "logic" that makes me facepalm.

This one is sober, useful and actually debunks a few of the stupid myths out there.

The website does sell 5000 mcg biotin supplements, but meh, I’m okay with it actually.

Here’s a link. Give them a visit :)

Eunatural.com: How to get long hair

This brings me to another post I found recently: Your Biotin Might Not Be Working, Unfortunately

”Some derms still recommend biotin, since it’s not harmful to take” made me cringe, but the rest is a decent read.

Which brings me to yet another link: What’s the harm in vitamin megadoses?

Fascinating (and weird) website in general!

Think I’ll add the last two links to my infamous biotin rant… 

Derma roller

I bought this one a little while ago. Mine is the 1 mm length rollers, which are targeting scar healing as opposed to the more generalized "glow/beauty" or anti-aging variants.

I've been using it exclusively on the ugly scars on my shins. I haven't seen any sure effect yet, but it also haven't made the scars worse.
I'm pretty pleased with this.

The theory behind these dermarollers/skinrollers is that they cause microscopic damage to the skin, which breaks down the scar tissue and forces the body to re-start the healing process.

It feels pretty much like you would expect when you push a bunch of micro needles into your skin: Not exactly painful, but also not very comfortable. Sort of like epilating, where you also have differences in the level of how uncomfortable it is. Like, around the bony part of the ankles hurts worse than the meaty calves.



It leaves little raised streaks and puncture-marks on the skin which feels a bit like a shallow scrape.
The only thing that made this really hurt was when I rolled first and then went to the gym and worked up a sweat. Ouch! Salty sweat in little puncture marks was not comfortable!

I would not want to use this in my face though!

The different brands also recommends using serum or essence in combination with this, but I just want to use something disinfecting before and after... You are literally punching little holes in your skin and maybe introducing dirt and dead skin cells into your pores.

Hair inspiration: Twist detail, take three

Okay, last try at this. I swear.

This time it went like I wanted it to. But damn, it took forever to finish! Maybe with some more practice it will be quicker and less aggravating for me. It was really frustrating!

But the result was great: Two layers of twists leading into a five-stranded braid.

The sectioning off for the twists really helped me keep track of the strands. My issue with the multi-stranded braids is that it's difficult to keep the individual strands separated and then it turns into an irritating mess for me.

I tried to make a simple gif of where I got the hair for the sections from (To make each strand around the same thickness) and how they went around as strands. Does it make sense?

Anyways. Here is a better sized picture with the result:

Very pleased with it!

PS: Please ignore the pajamas. It was right before bedtime and I couldn't be bothered to change back into clothes for a picture.

Would I do this style again?

Yes. Despite how long it took to create, I really liked it.

Hair inspiration: Twist detail, take two

Okay, so I gave the little twist detail another shot. I thought I could get two "twists" before braiding the rest, but I ended up giving up. Everything got messy and tangled and I couldn't see or feel what I was doing. I would definitely need some help for this style.

I ended up making a single "twist" and a semi-twisted one, before making a 4-stranded braid. 4-strands fitted with a strand for the front pieces, two for the semi-twisted one and one for the hairs left at the neck.
Messing around with the twist details made me mess up the beginning of the braid, so it wasn't as nice as the first try. The twists "dip" into the braid in a less pretty way than yesterday.

I like 4-stranded braids for their ability to "beef up" a braid, but dislike them for their strong tendency to twist.
Hubby didn't even notice the difference. Hmpf. Well, okay, it is subtle, but still...

It looked pretty nice pinned up as well.

Hair inspiration: Twist detail

Okay, I have gone through my accumulated "inspiration"-folder and done some rough sorting. Some of the styles I knew I couldn't do/wouldn't work right away, but I will start from one end off with what is left.

I did the full version of this one, but it turned out really crooked and twisted. Especially at the length where I could no longer reach behind my back and flipped it over my shoulder to continue the pattern. You really need someone to do this one for you, someone who can see exactly what they're doing there behind your back!
Well, that or someone with better fine motor skills than me.

I didn't even want to take a picture of the mess.

Then I tried using step 1-3 as a detail before braiding it into a regular braid and continuing like normal.

That was more like it!
This little twisted detail fulfills my two requirements for any style:

• It's not time-consuming or complicated and can be done by me alone.
• It's easily distinguishable from any other style or detail.

For my first shot at this, I'm very pleased. Next time I will know better where to start this and how to keep a good amount of tension in it. I started the elastic too low, so it ended up being braided into the braid. Next time I won't make that mistake.

Also, this had a certain effect of keeping my neck cool. Funny, because it doesn't appear to remove more hair from my neck than a normal braid?

Next time I will try to do stop 1-5 before continuing braiding.

What I wish Etsy-sellers understood

I’ve been looking for some cool new hairsticks and I keep wishing those Etsy-sellers would understand their market better.

For instance: It’s plain shocking just how many hairsticks have decorations on the middle of the stick-part. Or how many sticks are equally pointy in both ends, which make my fingers hurt just looking at them. Talk about not having even the most basic understanding of the product you’re trying to sell!

Do: Tell me your sticks are hair-friendly

Seriously. Explain how you have sanded the stick down and lacquered it to smoothness. Please. This is perhaps the biggest selling-point for all longhairs. I need to know that your stick, no matter how pretty, isn’t going to shred my hair!

Do: Write the useable length of the stick

Sure I can usually figure it out if you have the full length and the topper length written down, but writing what the useable length is, shows you understand the product you have made and the market it is for. It instantly makes me think higher of the quality of your sticks.

Do: Show me the full length of the sticks

I want to see that the stick has a nice balance and the topper isn’t overpowering it.

Do: Show me the tip of the sticks

I want to see that the tip isn’t too sharp so it could hurt my scalp, or too blunt so it will break my hair trying to push it into a bun.

Do: Explain exactly how you can personalise the sticks

Can you make it different lengths? Tell me exactly which ones you can do.

Can you make it another kind of wood? Tell me exactly which ones you have available.

Can you make it another colour? Tell me exactly which ones.

Don’t just write “Contact me if you want a personalised hair stick!”. It will probably waste time for both of us.

Don’t: Show me too many artsy pictures

A series of pictures with the cool fairy-filter of that hipster-glasses girl with the mason jars in the forest? I get it: You’re crunchy and your products are unique. Congrats. Not a selling point.

The most polite thing I can say, is that there’s a 99,99% chance that she doesn’t have the same colours or hair as mine, so I can’t compare how it looks in her hair, to how it will look in mine. Waste of effort and time for both of us.

Today’s hair

Played around with the fake bangs.

The colour difference looks less when it’s near the sun-lightened length, but still noticeable.

I think I will like the bangs better if I had them trimmed a bit, get them to fit lower on my forehead?

Throwback Thursday

Look what I found at my grandmothers place!

Me, aged 14 (ish) with the longest hair I ever had until I started growing it out again.

It’s strange to see how blonde it is. But then again, it may be sundamage? It definitely wasn’t in as good condition as it is now! 

Hair-blogging 101 with Igor!

Want to learn the simple rules of hair-blogging? Well, wait no more!

Igor is here to teach you!

Rule #1: Post only flattering pictures of yourself!

Rule #2: Take good care of your hair and make sure to stick with old methods that are proven to work!

Rule #3: Take good care of your skin!

Rule #4: Beer is actually good for hair!

Rule #5: Applying rule #3 and rule #4 in the wrong order can be pretty annoying.

Rule #6: Improvise!

Rule #7: Ignore the Hubby when he calls you a moron.